


Beauty & The Beast: The Last Petal

by LittleAprilFlowers



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types, Disney - All Media Types
Genre: Disney, F/M, Inspired by Beauty and the Beast, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 22:34:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10500828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleAprilFlowers/pseuds/LittleAprilFlowers
Summary: After Belle and Adam have found their happy ever after, life goes on in the castle. But just because the curse has been lifted doesn't mean all the magic is over. Maurice comes to live with his beloved daughter and her prospective husband, and therefore Adam will have to prove to him that he is worthy of Belle's hand beyond the life he could provide for her.I've seen the film twice now. This had to happen.





	

This latest piece was taking longer than Maurice might have desired. His many tools lay around his humble home, among countless odds and ends which had all had their place when it was not just him haunting this quiet humble cottage. Not for the first time, Maurice's mind wanders to thoughts of his daughter, the young woman whose clothes still hung beside his and whose bed lay untouched beneath the small window she would gaze out of as a child. Once Belle was a prisoner in the castle she now calls home, and her once captor would soon become her husband – a prince, no less. It was difficult to openly disapprove of one's child marrying into royalty, especially when you are nothing more than a peasant painter and toy maker by trade, but the thought of what Adam had become under the curse was proving difficult to shake from mind, even when Belle stared with such wonder and adoration at the former Beast. She would devote herself to him with all her heart, and he would do the same, and that ought to be enough. Maurice surely could not doubt the happiness and security that such a marriage would bestow upon his beloved Belle.

But her beauty was deceiving for many; Gaston had not been the only fool to take her for granted, only the most outspoken, and it had been a part of his downfall. Belle had always had her mother’s headstrong nature, and her desire for excitement and for adventure. Would life in a palace and its associated responsibilities as a princess not take that away? Every time Maurice thinks of his daughter, she resembles her mother more and more. He had loved her mother and would have given her the world if he had been able, but their marriage had called an end to any hopes they’d had of travelling, especially with the arrival of little Belle. Could he just sit by and allow that to happen to her too? Picturing Belle in a powdered wig and extravagant ballgown was hard to do. It did not suit her. She was no foolish waif with a head full of air and wit no sharper than a butter knife. She was brave, bright, honest, and confident. Being grounded in marriage to a prince would extinguish that glorious flame burning fiercely in her heart.

With a tired sigh, Maurice sets down the delicate tool in his hand and leans back in his rickety old chair. He recalls what Belle had insisted to him the last time she had visited, her soft hands clasped around his calloused ones, her perfect brown eyes shimmering with her earnestness.

 _Come and live with us, Papa. You would want for nothing. Please. You’re all I have._

A plan starts to form in his mind, the workings turning like cogs in the clock he had been working on. A smile tugs at his lips and he rises from his chair to pack his things. Perhaps he might consider that offer after all.

~~~

Sat on her favourite perch in the castle's massive library, Belle cradles the leather-bound book in her lap, reading by the warm glow of summer sunlight streaming through the window she leans on. What was once just a windowsill is now her own personal hideaway nook, complete with candles and note paper, and currently an ornate plate of mostly untouched cheese and apple slices. It was not unlike her to forget to eat when she read for hours on end, just as she seems to have done on this lazy August afternoon. There was little else to do after the celebrations, and the gradual process of trying to adapt to normality again for the castle’s residents. More than once she had caught Lumière and Cogsworth and the others stood stock still, as if they were inanimate, as if the curse had not been lifted and they had been turned into clocks and candlesticks for good.

As if under such an affliction herself, Belle does not notice the lone figure enter the library and watch her from below. Adam steps light as a feather along the polished floor and comes to stop at the foot of the ladder, gazing up at his sweetheart illuminated by the sun. She remains unaware of his presence, engrossed in the novel whose pages she turns with the same tenderness she might use to caress his cheek. Belle’s brown hair glows like it were spun in gold, her head haloed by the sunlight, and her porcelain skin unblemished and clean. It was not uncommon to see her with flecks of dirt or mud on her cheeks, from adventures in the expansive palace gardens or from trips home to the humble village of Villeneuve. But today she is spotless, the only marks on her face being the light dusting of freckles along her nose and cheeks. Of all the beauties that had waltzed in and out of Adam’s life, Belle was simply incomparable. She was perfect.

‘Good book?’ he asks loudly, unable to help himself from speaking out. She startles at first but her surprise quickly melts away into delight as she grins down at him.

‘One of many.’ Belle agrees, and sets it down with her frayed ribbon mark to keep her page before descending the ladder, with speed gained from practice. Adam steadies her when she reaches the bottom and she brushes off her skirts and tidies her hair.

‘Did you need me?’ she inquires, a little breathless from the exhilaration of practically sliding down the rails of the ladder.

‘No, I just wondered where you were.’ Adam admits, ‘Madame Potts suggested that I might find you here. I ought to know better by now; it is unlikely I would find you anywhere else, when you have so many books to go through.’

Belle laughs; the sound is wonderful and light and genuine. It lifts Adam’s heart just as it has time and time before. He takes her hands and smiles back at her.

‘Have I told you that you’re beautiful?’

‘Many times, yes. You can say it again though, if you’d like.’ she teases.

‘Very well. You are beautiful.’ Adam replies, and this time leans down to kiss her forehead with a tender press of his lips to her brow, ‘The most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Inside and out. True beauty lies within, after all, and I—’

‘Now you’re overdoing it.’ Belle says, playfully pushing him away and turning from him, the skirts of her plain green dress swishing, accentuating the grace in her movement. She clambers back up the ladder briefly before returning to Adam with her book and her formerly forgotten food.

They leave the library together and come to wander at a leisurely pace through the expanse labyrinth of the castle. Belle had come to know the walls to be grey and dusting when she first came here, not framed with gold and painted in brilliant blues and reds and greens as they are meant to be, as they are now. Though she assures others that she knows her way around the palace like the back of her hand, it still proves difficult to navigate when she isn’t sure that she is even in the same building anymore.

She notes Adam’s silence but says nothing of it. He seems content enough to walk beside her wordlessly, neither of them needing to speak to remain comfortable in the other’s presence, but she cannot deny that there seems to be something playing on the prince’s mind. He is distracted, yet by what she could not pinpoint. He would tell her in time, she was sure, if it were that important.

Hurried footsteps give Adam and Belle pause in their stroll, and sure enough, a young maid appears around the corner at the end of the hall and curtsies sharply before the lord of the house and his lady.

‘Sorry to disturb you, sire.’ the woman says, breathless from her hurry to find the couple in the maze of hallways, ‘You have a visitor at the gates. Monsieur Maurice? He says he is here to see Mademoiselle Belle.’

‘Is he alright?’ Belle asks, her concern instant and evident on her face.

‘Yes, mademoiselle. He is just visiting, he says.’

Adam thanks the maid with unhindered relief and dismisses her. The serving girl curtsies once more and hastens back the way she came, the flutter of her skirts instantly bringing to Belle’s mind the feathers that would have once made up the lower half of the girl’s body. She thinks of Plumette, who was now one of her dearest friends in the castle, and how she and the others very nearly resigned themselves to a fate as no more than a feather duster. So much has changed.

‘Will you come with me to meet him?’ Belle requests.

‘Of course, unless you would rather go alone?’

‘Nonsense. We’re family now, aren’t we?’ she insists, with a reassuring smile.

‘I suppose we are.’ Adam agrees, taking Belle’s hand in his once more, and enjoying the excited thrill sent through him at the thought of such a thing. Being part of a family again? He can’t imagine what might make him happier.


End file.
